British foreign secretary William Hague with Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, at this week's meeting in Brussels. Photograph: Francois Lenoir/Reuters

EU members agreed to suspend export licences for weapons or goods that could be used by Egypt for internal repression, but stopped short of ending aid programmes after a meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels.

Catherine Ashton, the EU's head of foreign policy, said ministers strongly condemned not only the disproportionate use of force by the Egyptian security forces but also violence by some of those opposed to the authorities. Ministers also called on all sides to go back to the negotiating table to avoid further bloodshed.

EU foreign ministers met to forge a common response following a crackdown on Muslim Brotherhood supporters that hasresulted in 1,000 deaths since last week.

Last November, the EU pledged an additional €5bn (£4.2bn) in long-term aid to Egypt. However, instability in the country has resulted in very little of the money being disbursed.

There is no question of turning off the aid tap to apply pressure, according to analysts. "The €5bn package is linked to the government having coherent medium-term programmes," said David Butter, an associate fellow at the Chatham House thinktank. "It's to start a process of investment-led sustainable recovery, but there is no institutional basis to absorb it; cutting aid doesn't mean anything."

The EU would not want to suspend programmes for basic social services, such as health and education, for the poorest. Some of the support so far, in particular under sector budget support, is designed precisely to help the most vulnerable.

EU support to the education sector, for instance, is designed to get disabled children into mainstream schools by providing appropriate training and infrastructure and increasing community involvement.

In the short-term, Egypt is not short of cash, despite the collapse last April of an International Monetary Fund deal worth $4.8bn that would have unlocked $14.5bn in other funding from the World Bank, the African Development Bank, and other lending institutions.

After Egypt's president, Mohammed Morsi, was deposed in early July, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates promised the country a total of $12bn in loans, grants and fuel shipments. Of that, $5bn has already arrived – an unusually fast delivery of aid commitments, showing the importance the Gulf attaches to stabilising Egypt.

Analysts believe the stricken Egyptian economy can limp along for six months with Gulf financial support, but say this temporary prop cannot address the country's longer-term problems.

"The cash can certainly help with fuel subsidies and foreign exchange reserves, but it's all short-term. The Gulf countries do not have the kind of depth of technical assistance [the EU can provide]," said Butter, adding that the collapse of the IMF agreement was calamitous since it delayed recovery and helped stoke opposition to Morsi.

EU officials have also emphasised the importance of the nature of EU aid. The EU's Egypt envoy, Bernardino Leon, said in an interview published on Wednesday that even if the support of Arab states was necessary for Egypt, "help from the west is equally fundamental because it's not only about quantity but also about quality".

"For Egypt's economy to recover, investors must return, and many of them are from Europe or the US – they need signals of confidence," Leon was quoted as telling German daily Süeddeutsche Zeitung. "Europe has enormous influence."

Since 2004, EU-Egypt bilateral trade has more than doubled. It reached its highest level in 2012, when it hit €23.8bn (from €11.5bn in 2004). EU imports from Egypt consist mainly of travel services and transport; goods imports are dominated by energy, followed by chemicals, textiles and clothes. EU exports to Egypt consist mainly of machinery and chemicals, while exports of services are dominated by business services.

Even before the €5bn package, the EU found it difficult to disburse money this year. In the 2007-13 financial period, the EU made more than €1bn available to Egypt under the European Neighbourhood Partnership Instrument (ENPI), the main financial mechanism for providing aid to the region. The programmes being implemented amount to about €892m, but – due to Egypt's instability and its failure to meet conditions for democratic reform – only €16m has been paid this year.

In addition to EU aid, member states have their own bilateral aid programmes, worth an estimated €2.4bn to Egypt. Denmark last week announced a suspension of aid to Egypt, pulling the plug on two projects worth about 30m Danish kroner (€4m).

The US has cancelled joint military exercises and delayed the delivery of four F-16 fighter jets in response to the violence, but is still weighing whether to suspend some of its annual $1.5bn aid to Egypt, $1.3bn of which goes to the military.